


bloodstained tomorrow

by orphan_account



Series: flint and steel [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Arson, Graffiti, M/M, Murder, jisung being introspective and a little... conflicted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:00:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24501217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The room is overcome with the scent of citrus, yet Jisung still smells the distinct odor of blood.(Before meeting Minho, Jisung had never been drawn to flame.)
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Series: flint and steel [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764163
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	bloodstained tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> if you have enough time to click on this fic then you have enough time to sign a petition or donate in support of black lives matter. please don't ignore this issue and do your part to help. a comprehensive list of resources can be found at this carrd: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/  
> if you are attending protests, please stay safe.  
> don't bother reading this if you'll ignore blm. it takes only a few minutes to sign or donate, yet such a seemingly small action can lead to major steps forward in the fight against racial inequality.
> 
> assuming you've either signed a petition or donated, note before you begin reading that this fic often mentions blood and murder. again, take care of yourself.

Jisung wears gloves of blood.

The warmth soaks into the folds of his palms, a grim reprieve of the numbness gnawing at his fingertips as he hunches over the bathroom sink. He’s got a headache coming on, reflection blurring in the mirror as he struggles to train his gaze on it. His hair is matted against his forehead; sweat stains the collar of his shirt. He may as well be the living incarnation of exhaustion.

He can’t bring himself to wash his hands - the water runs on, and maybe once he might’ve worried about the bill, but he can’t think about that now. (Every now and then, he’s struck anew by the visceral fear of killing. Of death.)

His hands are sticky with blood that isn’t his, and it hurts as much as if he were the one stabbed, setting his nerves aflame with an ache that pulses across the length of his body and curls into his skin like a series of little daggers.

Then a deep breath in, out, and he calms.

He can’t think like this, he muses, unflinching as icy water soaks his hands. It’s unacceptable.

The bloody water swirls away from him, down the rusty drain, and Jisung permits one last shaky exhale before he looks up and makes eye contact with himself.

His hair hangs limply over his forehead. At the collar of his shirt are the sweat stains he noted earlier; lower still are little splatters of blood. He really did a poor job of this one, didn’t he?

He goes back to washing his hands, picking at the dry blood under his nails. A poor job indeed. Messy, unprofessional - yet he’s done this so many times before, and the cops  _ still _ aren’t on his trail.

Maybe yesterday, he would have laughed at the thought; tonight, he doesn’t, and he curses himself for being so shaken so badly by a little mishap. Miscalculations are normal in his line of work, after all; what matters is how he corrects his mishaps. And he did a fair job of it, didn’t he? Wrenched the knife just so to make up for being off from his intended spot - and it had  _ worked _ , without more than a split second of thought being devoted to solving the issue. Speed wasn’t the problem here, nor overall smarts.

The problem wasn’t his technique. The problem was his damned pity, the part of him that sighted the knickknacks on the man’s desk and allowed for a trace of fucking sentimentality to mar the carelessness he had worked so hard to construct. Seriously? A mini Rubik’s cube to make him this upset?

He feels idiotic. Like a TV criminal. The one that renounces his years of bad habit to go live with his beloved or whatever. It’s enough to make him want to puke, but Jisung doesn’t, because he’s still got an ounce of self-control, and a dash of good sense on top, both of which shout at him to get out of the bathroom and catch a bit of sleep before he works himself up into a frenzy. Good advice, certainly.

Hence, he refuses to listen to anything his mind spews until he’s finally got the last bit of crusted blood washed away. Even then, he forces his head to be void of thought as he collapses onto a chair in the kitchen, not even bothering to turn the light on.

He’d rather like a book to read, he thinks. Or something to do. So he grabs an orange, looking over it without even thinking to eat as he tears the peel to little bits in his hands. The room is overcome with the scent of citrus, yet he still smells the distinct odor of blood.

Tonight’s target had been a young businessman. Jisung guesses he must have been only a few years older than himself, from the youth in his reflexes as he whipped around as soon as the blade pricked his skin. Agile, but not agile enough. And smart, but not smart enough either to escape from the costs of fooling around with money.

Money, Jisung has learned, is a strong motivator. Not only for himself but for the people who employ his services - so many of them are after someone yet to pay off their debts. Idiots, the lot of them - what do they have to benefit from a few million they’ll squander, anyway?

He’s learned to not pay mind to that, either. Money is money, and Jisung has bills to pay and his own needs to take care of.

In any case, he pities that man. He certainly seemed to have had a life set out for him, judging from the crispness of his dress suit and the cute little picture on his desk of who he presumed was his daughter. All that wasted by a few promises he couldn’t keep.

“What a shame,” he mutters as he pops an orange slice into his mouth. The juice overwhelms him for a brief moment, a good distraction.

He doesn’t think about it the next morning, though, pulling that convenient little smokescreen over his amygdala as he sets about washing his clothes (and his hands a few more times for good measure).

\--

Jisung washed his hands of responsibility for his actions long ago, the first time they were doused in the tears of someone else. He’d been inexperienced with a gun back then - enough so to believe he had full mastery of it, the cocky little thing he was, even when his finger would slip a little on the trigger for fear of making a single wrong move. His aim had also been much worse - good for an amateur shot, of course, but an amateur shot no less.  _ And _ he had made the awfully stupid mistake of messing up just so and shooting the moving target in his arm rather than his chest.

Thankfully, the target was dull enough to be shocked still, and Jisung had taken that opportunity to finish him off. A waste of a bullet and precious time, but his first! His first kill! Like something he’d earn a shiny little badge for in a shooter game.

Alas, that micro-victory might as well have been outweighed by Jisung’s morbid curiosity at the sight of a dead body, both instinctual and not. The conflicting need to know just what he had done versus the adrenaline kicking in and yelling to get out as fast as his legs could carry him. Naturally, the wonder at the sight of a bloody rag doll won him over, and he stepped closer.

The man’s eyes were open, gazing at him with a vacancy Jisung matched with his put-on apathy. A few tears had been shed, some still hanging precariously off his eyelashes, and for that moment Jisung allowed himself to feel all-encompassing regret, heavy enough to make even the gun in his hand seem less like a toy than some sort of forbidden object, a-

A weapon.

At that moment, Jisung became completely familiar with the concept of crime in its entirety. Not just the act of running from the authorities, or knowing various ways to carry out a murder, or the nonsense mess in the back of his head he had to repress for fear it would overpower him and the control he held over his plans. Indeed, those were only the superficial things, the ones the world could understand from the get-go. No, he became familiar with the constant juxtaposition of fear and excitement, warring over possession of his actions at every waking moment until he had to push those down with the thoughtlessness he couldn’t help but hate. He became familiar with the taste of sheer power at the move of a finger, his god’s game of weighing out the delicate balance of life and death then ruining it just for thrills. He became familiar with being anything but himself and the truest version of himself he possibly could be.

Maybe those things could be guessed at by the average law-abiding citizen, too. But no man could feel them like Jisung - at least, he thought no one could, not in the way he did.

A couple of times after that first kill, Jisung considered turning himself in, overcome with disgust at himself then feeling unwelcome pride just after. Even today, somehow, he’s no different, just a little more used to that mess of feeling.

In that sense, he’s turned out completely different than he thought he would. He thought he’d be like those murderers on TV, in books, in games: cold-hearted, killing without even a thought. Yet the opposite has happened. He thinks that now, he feels more deeply than he ever has, even with the weight of so many lost lives on his hands. Maybe it’s because of that.

Oddly enough, though, he doesn’t feel guilt.

It’s weird, at least to him, because with every person he did away with he felt less guilty about it until he stopped feeling that at all; death became commonplace, with less value to him than what any normal person might attribute to their own job. Sooner or later, he hopes, he’ll be able to apply that indifference to everything else, until it extends beyond the act he puts on and becomes firmly imbued in his personality.

Not now, though. Jisung might hold god-like power over those he must kill, but he’s nothing more than a weakling cowering in that position for lack of any other alternative. A papier-mache golden calf.

\--

Jisung has no haunts; he’d long done away with the thought of a particular safe spot since even the beginning of his career. He has an apartment, but he doesn’t stay there often, instead choosing to take refuge in places that are either abandoned or where no one will pay attention to him.

Tonight’s stay is a little abandoned house, perched on a swath of empty land a few meters from one in similar ruin. Upon stepping foot inside and hearing the creak of the wooden floorboards, Jisung knew that no one had paid this building any mind in decades. The roof might as well collapse on him for how fragile it is.

Pitch dark but for a few spots of moonlight coming in from outside, it’s perfect. The scant lighting is more than ample for him, anyhow, and he finds his way to the bookshelf across the room without a problem. Only two books are left; the one he picks up crumbles even in his ginger hold, pages coming away from the dried glue on the spine and falling to the floor in a languid motion.

Jisung cleans them up and sits on the chair next to the window. Despite its apparent age, it holds, even when he coughs at the cloud of dust that rises from it.

There’s no one here, yet he remains high-strung. Someone is bound to come around sooner or later, considering the graffiti on the house’s exterior. Maybe not tonight, but he only has a day at most to spend here.

He doesn’t sleep; he just thinks. The ache of his muscles is too familiar for him to pay any mind to it; the weight of his gun at his side is equally familiar but thousands of times more comforting. As night fades into day, he stays seated, intent on clearing away all the grime in his head until he can finally come to some peace of mind.

Then, he notes from the gap in the torn curtains, a man is walking toward the house.

He perks up - despite himself, the man interests him. He walks with certainty, despite keeping his hands in his pockets to hide something. What could that be?

_ Matches _ , Jisung realizes; he looks around himself, at the crumbling wood, and thinks that if this man is an arsonist, he can play a fun game with him. Thus, in a breath, he expels the worry and fatigue of the days before to level the man with a look as he walks in.

The stranger doesn’t even notice him at first, instead taking in the wood and the dilapidated couch. Then they make eye contact, and Jisung is left to look at the eyes of someone aware of his shrewdness and not of his cunning. How odd.

The man’s hand comes away from the matchbox in his pocket as he smiles in greeting.  _ Don’t smile _ , Jisung considers saying; instead, he asks, “What are you doing here?”

The man’s smile only widens. “Care to give me an introduction?”

Oh, so he’s the rhetorical question type. The predictable type. “No. Would you?”

“I wouldn’t.” The bare amount of sunlight coming in through the window paints the world around them in a palette of almost-hallucinatory shades, like a fever dream mutated by recollection upon recollection until finally being reduced to nothing more than ambiguity. Through it all, the man remains smiling; Jisung knows this even as he turns to gaze back out the window. “What is there to look at?”

Does he think he has the upper hand? “Things better than fire.”

“Fire?” The stranger’s tone wavers ever the slightest, stance shifting so the floorboards issue a faint creak. He can play all he wants, but Jisung’s got him right where he wants him.

“You’re an arsonist, by the look of it.” He stands, noting now that the man’s exposed hands are riddled with burn scars. His eyes, however, hold no fear. Not even uncertainty. Jisung would be wise not to underestimate him. “Did I get that right?”

“Not entirely.”

“Oh.” The rest, Jisung knows, he’ll figure out. “Well, at least I got some of it right.”

Later, standing outside with a box of matches in his hand that doesn’t belong to him, Jisung mulls over the stranger’s apparent bravado yet his lack of attentiveness. He should have no problem burning the house; there was a lighter in his pocket, too.

He’ll be scared, and he won’t even know it.

Jisung smiles, slipping the matchbox into his jacket pocket with the air of a victor.

He disposes of it eventually, but not before carrying it around with him for a while like some sort of charm.

\--

Jisung, like many others, used to have a tick of picking at his fingernails. He’d learned to abstain from doing so quickly upon realizing the slightest trace of his blood left behind at a crime scene could kill him; nevertheless, he still resorts to the comfort of mindlessly peeling away skin on days where everything moves too slow for his mind to comprehend.

Now, for example. He has a lot of time on his hands. No one has come to him with a job, and he hasn’t really been venturing anywhere other than to find a new place to stay for the night. So, picking away the skin around his thumbnail, he ponders things he can’t avoid.

Like exhaustion. It’s been following him for a while until it crept into every crevice of his mind and outweighed his morals. Or, at least, convinced him that being empty and lawless was preferable to being empty and bound by infinitely many restrictions. Either way, he’s bored and taking refuge near an abandoned hospital he had found after hours of wandering. The bright red  _ No Trespassing _ sign did nothing but lure him closer until he was camped out near the front entrance, a little cold and miffed by the light at the end of the parking lot flickering on and off at random. 

He’s doing a little better these days. The shock of his reaction to the last killing has worn off, stowed away neatly in the back of his head. Without that bogging him down, he’s slowly becoming more and more restless. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing here, really, just that he should be here.

Then he sights a familiar figure walking to the hospital and he thinks he shouldn’t be here at all, because it’s the  _ arsonist _ , this time with a can of spray paint in his hand.

His curiosity gets the better of him, and he creeps closer. The man doesn’t even look in his direction, for a moment just standing and looking at the building before starting to write in large, blocky letters a sentence that Jisung thinks he recognizes, back from his dusty memories of libraries and learning and fascination with novelty, things from a different life altogether…

_ What’s the antonym of crime? _

He realizes that’s what the man is writing; after a beat, he remembers the book, too. He hadn’t really liked  _ No Longer Human _ ; at the time, he’d thought it depressing. He’d been more interested in nonfiction back then, anyway.

That had been a crucial point in the book, though. And thinking just a little harder, he can remember the answer: “The law, of course.”

The man, as expected, doesn’t turn around, only whining, “You took my matches.”

How bright of him to notice. Jisung holds back a laugh. “You’re not a very attentive person.” The other doesn’t even turn around when he’s standing right beside him, only putting an extra few centimeters between them. This close, Jisung can make out the youthful recklessness of the man’s face, his angular features carved out of shadow and daring. Had Jisung met this man in high school, he would have thought him to be of those who valued their free time over their studies. “Also, you don’t seem like the type to enjoy a Dazai book.”

The man’s lips turn in a slight frown. “No one  _ enjoys _ reading his works. They enjoy thinking about them.”

“And quoting them to seem knowledgeable.” Jisung can’t remember having thought about  _ No Longer Human  _ many times after reading it, and certainly not with a shred of enjoyment. The stranger also doesn’t seem like the type who would; he’s clearly aiming to make an impression rather than mention a quote with some great impact on him.

“Yeah- hey.” They finally make eye contact, though Jisung is left looking into pools of murky emotion he can’t quite decipher. “It seemed fitting.”

He shrugs. “So this is what you meant by ‘not entirely?’”

The man doesn’t answer, but Jisung’s content with watching. He puts a hand over his nose to guard against the smell, envying the mask the other pulls back over his nose. He has a steady hand, Jisung notes.

Eventually, though, the silence becomes a little stifling. “Lame. I would have thought you did something more interesting.”

“Like what, murdering people?”

Jisung blinks, forgetting to laugh. No, this person standing in front of him couldn’t be a murderer. A criminal, of course, but he clearly hadn’t even paid a single thought to killing another. Not cautious enough to be that kind of person; the prospect is almost entertaining. “No,” he answers;  _ keep dreaming _ , he adds in his head.

The man hums, finishing the question mark at the end of the quote. It looks like fun. And Jisung  _ is _ really bored. “Can I draw something, too?”

Begrudgingly, the man agrees, and Jisung takes the spray paint bottle. It’s warm against his chilled palms, which he notes with gratitude as he writes the first thing that comes to mind:  _ Sungie was here! _ It’s messy, laughable compared to the man’s art right beside it. As compensation, he figures, he adds a smiley face, grinning when the man yanks the spray paint can back and grumbles about acting like a teenager.

“While we’re at it,” he adds, “now is a good time to tell me your name, isn’t it?”

The light flickers on, bathing the stranger’s face in light and casting his eyes into full view. They’re open -  _ hopeful _ , even, and Jisung looks for a little longer than he has to. “Jisung,” he says, all too aware of how fragile his voice sounds. Inwardly, he cringes.

“Minho.”

At that moment, Jisung knows he’s made a mistake, even if Minho is telling the truth. “I’ll be off.” He waves before walking away, and Minho doesn’t even bother to follow - he only watches, and briefly, Jisung entertains the notion of killing him if only to clear away the regret steeping in his mind.

Then, he realizes that would be boring.

And he  _ knows _ where Minho is going to go next.

\--

Regrettably, Jisung was right.

Minho is back at the house near the one they had met each other in, the darkness of nighttime casting the world around them in a chill starkly opposed to the sunlight from back then. It seems like a place that Jisung has never visited, yet he still gets a touch of deja vu from the purposefulness in Minho’s stride.

“Good evening,” he shouts, smiling when he only receives a wave in response. He’s starting to look forward to what Minho has to offer him this time.

Minho looks over him when he’s close enough, likely surprised at the state he's in. He’s just shot two people. Well, not just - it was two hours ago, but he didn’t have the energy to clean up after himself and didn’t know if Minho would arrive early, anyway.

(Or, at least, that’s what Jisung tells himself. The truth is he wants Minho to  _ know _ .)

Minho, on the other hand, looks immaculate. It’s probably just the confidence of his expression.

“You’re really predictable,” Jisung says, words barely filling the vast nothing around them.

“Then why hasn’t a single cop caught me yet?” Another rhetorical question. Predictable the nth time over. “Would you like to see something?”

He exhales. “You’re going to set this building on fire. Predictable.” He spits out the last word, but Minho pays him no mind.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Minho, Jisung learns, is not only methodical when playing with fire but  _ quick _ . In a single motion, he’s already got flames crawling along the floor, swallowing the furniture and casting his face in an angelic glow.  _ Like magic. _

“You like doing this?” he asks, smoke gouging his voice out of his throat against his will.

“I can’t imagine you doing anything better.”

Touché. “Well, if you say so.”

In his coat, Jisung is starting to feel uncomfortably warm. His surroundings, once seeming so vast, feel like they’re crowding in on him in a haze of flame and soot and Minho’s sheer presence. He wants to say something, realizes his mouth is dry, forgets. And Minho looks at him, knowing and so at peace it sends a chill down his spine even in the sweltering heat. Maybe Jisung is prone to feeling too much. But now, one thing stands out against the slew of emotion and thoughts running around in the atria of his heart, and that is that  _ he wants to know Minho. _ He wants to know what deep sorrow runs through him for him to resort to blowing off steam by setting buildings on fire. He wants to know what’s going on behind those tranquil irises.

“I suggest we get out,” Minho whispers, somehow audible even over the crackling of the wood. “What are you so sad about?”

Jisung isn’t sad. Far from it, in fact. But he still believes he has Minho within his grasp, so he answers, “You. I pity you,” even knowing he’s going to laugh it off.

“I’m honored.” Minho beams,  _ predictably. _

\--

Jisung never sees Minho creating graffiti again, but he somehow manages to find every building he wants to burn.

Either Minho is one predictable man or Jisung is just out of his mind.

Every time, he watches the flames go up in Minho’s face and how he’s never fazed. How he seems to hold power over the fire, the air,  _ everything  _ in those moments when they’re surrounded by destruction. Where their conversation is limited to the meaningless back-and-forth, something Jisung aches for and finds repulsive at once.

Yet one moment had been a little different.

Minho had stood, lighter in his hand, completely still. Jisung figured he might have moments like this; nonetheless, they were in an empty house full of things practically  _ begging _ to be set aflame, and Jisung hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary in the way Minho had arrived.

“I don’t want to do it,” Minho said, still focused on the lighter in his hand. He’d even brought oil this time. He’d really wanted to start a disaster.

Jisung was significantly put-off, but he said nothing.

“Why are you always here?”

He definitely hadn’t been expecting that, either.

“It’s not my fault we keep crossing paths.” He felt like he should tack on  _ you’re just too predictable _ for the sake of it, but Minho was looking at him with the clarity reserved for the moments before he was going to create a spectacle of red and orange and Jisung knew it was not the time to challenge him.

Minho nodded and, in a wordless retort, uncapped the container of oil and poured it onto the floor. It was a shade of black just darker than that of the night that hemmed them in, reminding Jisung of Minho’s eyes at the abandoned hospital.  _ Like tears _ .

Minho set his tears aflame and just watched, eyes hooded, seemingly forgetting about Jisung’s presence there. He felt like he was witnessing something he shouldn’t, but he knew he wasn’t supposed to go, either.

“It’s gorgeous,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm.

Still, Minho remained silent.

\--

Summer is the best season for burning and the worst season for murder.

There’s actually nothing about it that stands out as a particularly bad time to kill anyone - rather, it’s Jisung’s personal disdain for it. At the end of summer, though, just bordering on the start of fall, he makes a mistake, and it solidifies his dislike for it into hatred.

He knows every person he has to kill before he goes ahead with the act. For example, say he’s given a man who owns a fish store. He finds the fish store, the hours it opens and closes, any buildings in the near vicinity the man may go to, his route to and from work, his home. It’s a hefty task at first, but given one bit of information (usually from the person paying him), it’s easy to find the rest going off that.

In some other world, he might have been a good detective.

Thus, Jisung is also good at throwing  _ off _ the detectives. He knows how they think, and he knows exactly what red herrings to leave so they’re on someone else’s tail.

But working by himself presents just as many dangers as having a team to back him up, and one minor oversight or chance occurrence can turn into something that will have him on the run from the cops for months. The situation he’s in now, for instance: someone sighting him in the parking lot of the store the latest victim was in. A business owner. The client claimed he wanted her dead for unpaid dues. (A stupid reason to want to kill someone, Jisung had thought at first. But he understands desperation and being hemmed in, and knows that it’s easier to resort to moronic justification than to confront the truth of why you’re doing something. Besides, it isn’t his place to question it when at the end of the day, there will be money in his pockets.)

He was dressed as to camouflage himself, a mask drawn over his face and clothing just the right shades to blend in with his scenery, but it didn’t matter because someone had  _ seen him _ and now the police have a critical clue. Now, Jisung can’t stay in one place for more than a few hours. As used as he may be to being on the run, something about this rubs him the wrong way, and he figures he should retreat for a little bit. He has enough money to sustain himself.

The only problem, really, is that his boredom is mixing with his restlessness to create an unease that seeps through the bricks of all the walls he’s erected in his mind. He needs to do something or he’ll go mad outright, mind decaying like the fall leaves that no longer crunch under his shoe soles.

No, Jisung realizes then, he doesn’t need to do anything. Nothing here, at least. He needs to get out of Korea. Too much is too much, and he’s been here for too long, killed too many people, set himself up for a catastrophe. He’s not in an advantageous position; like a knight knocked to the side of the board at the start of a chess game, he’ll be rendered immobile by the movement of everything around him soon, and then what?

Fall passes in a whirlwind of neurosis and half-baked plans.

The first snowfall is harsh and catches him by surprise, covering the dull autumn in a blanket all too bright for his exhaustion. It reminds him of the light that kept flickering on at the end of the parking lot, that day at the hospital…

Again, he knows where he has to be.

It wasn’t hard for him to figure out where Minho lived. All the buildings he burned were confined to the same general area, and though it had taken Jisung a few guesses, he had found him at a convenience store buying cat food. He’d been surprised, then, and Jisung could see it clearly written across his face, though he supposed he looked no better.

He takes the train, resolution unchanging though not one person spares him a glance. He wants out. Even if he can stay here, he can’t.

Jisung takes in his surroundings carefully as he makes the brief walk from the bus stop to his apartment. He can stay for a little longer, actually. (He’s tied here, scared of repercussions, scared of too many plans, scared of everything, he’s scared out of his mind.)

As always, Jisung snaps back to routine.

\--

When he was little, Jisung had enjoyed playing in the snow. He liked making snowmen, participating in snowball fights, making snow angels, the whole shebang. As an adult, he figures, he isn’t much different. The snowfall covers up his footprints, hiding him under a cloak of brightness that contrasts his coat. For some reason, winter is still his playground.

He’s been lurking around Minho’s neighborhood for a while now, something in him unwilling to let this last little bit go. And he knows that on this day (on Saturdays) at this time (10 AM) at this specific convenience store, Minho is going to buy food for stray cats and instant ramyeon for himself. He sees him right now, from his lazy perch on a pile of snow. A figure, lonely and stark against the backdrop of snow, advancing with an almost uncaring attitude. He smiles, pulling at the lapels of his coat, but doesn’t look as Minho approaches.

“Hey,” he hears over the gentle whoosh of wind, “what are you out here for?”

Up close, Minho looks the same, if not a little irritated. Jisung watches his expression carefully, noting the deep-seated boredom. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

Minho, for once, fails to give an immediate response, and Jisung knows he can see everything. The dark patches under his eyes. The blood under his nails. But Jisung sees everything, too. He sees how Minho’s nostrils flare in a defeated exhale, how his shoulders stiffen slightly.

It should feel like a victory. It’s not.

“What are you here for?” Minho asks, lowering his voice despite the emptiness surrounding them. He maintains eye contact as Jisung stands. “Would it kill you to be a little more careful?”

He wants to laugh. “It would. How have you been?”

Minho waits for a little before answering. Yet again, Jisung considers just shooting him right then and there. Snow white surroundings, blood-red lips, and a deserved ending. Would it feel nice? Would it truly be deserved?

His skin crawls.

“I’ve been alright,” Minho answers at long last. “You?”

“Good.” He blinks away his thoughts, staring in a way he hopes comes off as prompting.

“I was going to get some snacks.”

Minho turns as if to leave Jisung there, but he follows anyway, watching as Minho picks out more junk food than necessary and a large bag of cat food. His movements are unrushed, and Jisung commits that to memory.

It’s not enough to remember, though. “Buy me some chocolate.”

Minho spares him only a brief glance. “No.”

“Come on,” Jisung prods, “this is the last time you’ll be able to buy me something. Choose wisely.”

That’s when Minho caves. His lips curl into something of a frown, but he complies and buys Jisung a dark chocolate bar.

He hasn’t had chocolate in ages, but he holds his childish excitement at bay when Minho finally gives it to him. The gold wrapping seems like an award.

“You know…” He pauses, snapping a piece off for Minho. He doesn’t know what he wants to say. He doesn’t quite know what he’s going to do, either, seeing his future is as nebulous as the snowfall. But he continues, “You know, you’re probably the scariest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. The scariest and the saddest.”

That’s not true. Jisung has met a wide assortment of frightening people through his life, with lists of sins far worse than Minho’s. He’s nothing. A poor criminal. Fairly weak. Yet those feel like the truest words he’s spoken in some time.

“Is that a good thing?” Minho asks. His gaze is steady; Jisung envies him.

“Up to you. I’ll be going now.”

As Jisung turns away, the wrapper crinkles in his uneasy hold. He may not be one to treasure useless things, yet he entertains the notion of keeping it, even as the last of the chocolate melts on his tongue.


End file.
